Guild Wars 2

Combo fields and finishers used to be heavily advertised to us before the game launch and I was very excited for this aspect of the game. As much as some of them can be useful, not much has changed since release. I think that with new mechanics and some old ones there’s a potential to create new and impactful interactions.

These are not standard field/finisher interactions since i think we have all of them pretty much covered irregardless of their usefulness. Here are just some examples I came up with.

• Taunt + Fear being at the same time on the target produce Confusion stacks
• Ice field + Water field overlapping causes knockdown. Slippery!
• Immobilize + Knockback/Launch/Pull creates “tearing” effect which deal additional damage
• Lightning field + Water field overlapping causes a series of mini shocks

I think it’s safe to say that there’s a lot of untapped potential in this area. If you come up with new combos lease post them

Combos are mostly fine the way they are, most of them simply don’t have the utility that fire/water do.

Like, I get that burst finishers are supposed to be the “big” effects, but honestly, the burn applications from doing projectiles through fire, pretty much all the whirl effects, etc. need to be updated so people want to use them.

For instance, whirls should fire targeted projectiles, projectiles should probably double their condition durations, leap auras should quadruple their durations, etc.

It’s not that combos are bad. It’s just that a system that should support teamwork is really only useful when chain bursting fire or water, and of negligable effect otherwise.

Maybe alter the system so that self combos function as they do now, but combos with another player are more effective?

I like the idea of comboing like this, it would also give water fields another more offensive use.
I do think a heavy cc like knockdown is too strong for example, but the idea in general is great

I can only think of 2 types of combo parts missing:

• Crystal field – Tied to earth and crystal/shattering themes.
  • Projectile – Adds bleeding.
  • Whirl – Creates bleeding shards.
  • Leap – Magnetic aura.
  • Blast – Short 1-2s Protection.

• Spray- This effect is both a field and a finisher, and is created from skills that create a pulsing cone like like Flame Jet, Drake’s Breath, Cone of Cold and “Receive the Light!”, and it’s both a field and a finisher.
  • As a field, it works like any other: Fire, Water, Ice, Light, etc…
  • As a finisher, it lengthens the related effect: With a fire field it’ll add duration to existing burning, with a water field it’ll add duration to regeneration, with a darkness field, it’ll add duration to blind, and so on. If the related effect is not present on the affected creatures, this finisher does nothing.
    So, with two players firing a drake’s breath at the same target while their cones overlap, they’ll finish each other’s fields and deals a bit longer burning, and someone using cone of cold on a healing rain will increase the regeneration of players standing where the cone and the rain overlap.

IMO fix the existing combos first. Most of them are useless and sometimes detrimental if say an Ethereal field overwrites a Fire field.

Embolism.8106:

IMO fix the existing combos first. Most of them are useless and sometimes detrimental if say an Ethereal field overwrites a Fire field.

The problem is that practically only fire and water are wanted, leaving no room for others.

This is something that will not change. Water works too well, and people value might way too much.

One possible solution would be giving a cooldown to each combination. For example, a blast would get a 3s cooldown, a projectile a 0.5s cooldown, and a whirl or a leap kitten cooldown.

So, if you put several fields together, instead all finishers triggering with the lowest one, while one combination is on cooldown, the finisher triggers the next field, then the next.

So stacking different kinds fields would not be counter-productive. The more fields you stack, the more combos can be done.